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Snow elf
Appearance Snow elves are the tallest of the elven races and generally tower above humans. Females occasionally reach 6'4", and it is not unknown for males to have grown to 7'. While very thin, snow elves are extremely wiry and tough individuals. Snow elf skin and hair colors vary from ashen shades of gray to crispy white, sometimes even taking on a blue tint. Their eyes are typically blue, gray or silver. They never grow facial hair. Unlike other elves, snow elves aren't particularly beautiful: their facial features are rough and grim, their small eyes deep in their skulls, their jaws more human in shape. You couldn't say they're exactly unattractive, for they are elves, but they seem to lack a certain delicate grace that's made elves across the Realms so envied. The cold clans Dwelling in tight-knit, extremely isolationist families or clans of 3-30 members, snow elves are very territorial and hostile toward trespassers. These clans live in small villages consisting of 2-10 dome-shaped huts of woven trees, covered with furs and skins and packed on the outside with snow. Such villages house members of one clan only and lie generally near the center of that clan's territory. Territories average two square miles in size for each member of a clan's village. Communities numbering more than 30 undergo a branching off, wherein two or more family groups pack their belongings in early spring and set out in search of new territory. This prevents overpopulation and starvation in a rugged environment that offers no bountiful harvests for large communities. Such branching off is now a rare event. Snow elves develop classes as do any other sorts of elves. They may become fighters, rangers, druids, wizards, or thieves. Level limits for snow elves are given in the table herein. By tradition, males are most often found as fighters, rangers, and thieves; females are usually wizards, and either sex may become druids. Fully half of any clan will belong to a character class (the rest are zero-level characters). Those snow elves having a class will be 1st level, usually fighters (if male) or wizards (if female). Half-elves whose elven parents were snow elves are treated as any other sort of half-elf, though they are extremely rare. CLOTHING Snow elves typically dress in furs, hides, skins or leathers from animals they have killed and eaten. They are very good at seeing that no part of the animal goes to waste. Snow elves are also skilled weavers, and trade with other races to obtain wool. A typical outfit consists of woven undertunic and breeches, a heavier sweater, leather pants lined with furs and a hide or fur outer parka. Decorations of carved bone beads and silver are valued. Snow elves do not make metallic "elven chain", but have developed their own unique type of armor made from white dragon hide. Diet Vegitation is sparse in the arctic and competition for food is fierce. The typical snow elf diet is based around reindeer, carabou, bear, seals, fish, dried berries, and roots. History There is no certainty as to the origins of snow elves, but there are those fair elves in the Moonshaes and Ardeep Forest who still tell a legend that might have some truth in it. During the Crown Wars, the green elven nation of Illefarn had succeeded in staying relatively detached from the worst conflicts. An end to this came a little before Aryvandaar's fall, when coronal Giilvas Vyshaan attacked Illefarn. The nation was almost destroyed and the surviving sylvan elves fled to weakened Shantel Othreier and the unsettled islands of Moonshae. This is well-known history, but the Ardhavian and Moonshavian descendants of Illefarn, and its northern colony of Llewyrr, say it is not the whole truth: there were those tribes in both Illefarn and the Llewyrrwood who refused to flee, and spent years fighting the sun elves with fierce guerilla tactics. Eventually they were pushed further north by the superior Aryvandaarans, whose mages would scry the locations of these rebels and burn their homes with magical fire. Years later, when the Vyshaanti were defeated and Illefarn was being re-settled, some wild elves came looking for their lost kin. They travelled north along the Spine of the World and all the way to the glacial ice sheet known as Anauroch, today called the High Ice. There they found something that took them by surprise: elves clad in primitive furs, their hair and skin tinted in shades of gray, white and pale blue. Feasting over a still-warm corpse of a huge yeti, the creatures didn't react to their approaching sylvan cousins. Suddenly, ice cracked under the feet of the expedition and they tumbled down into a pit. As they shook off the disorientation, a pale face twisted by anger appeared above the pit, and said: ”We have been exiled from your lands, and so shall you be exiled from ours. You are the ones who left, do not come looking for us.” That was the last this expedition ever saw of the snow elves. When they had managed to climb out of the trap, their shaman attempted divinations to locate the snow elves again, but his vision was blocked by a pair of stern eyes that stared at him from the darkness. That convinced the expedition that the exiles were under Fenmarel's protection, and they returned home. That is the legend, as told by sages of today's Ardeep and Moonshae. How much of it really happened is unclear, though, and the story is not well-known among other elves around Faerûn and Evermeet. The snow elves themselves do not know this legend, as they don't keep records of history. In fact, they are widely an illiterate race. However, something similar is told among many tribes: snow elves say their lands were taken by other elves, their homes burned and food eaten, and they were driven into the cold North to die. There, Fenmarel Mestarine came to them when no other god would. He made them strong and resiliant to the cold, taught them the lore of the land and showed them how to find food. Many snow elves still believe they are Fenmarel's People, created and protected by the Lone Wolf. They do not know how long ago this exodus and transformation happened, though. The more recent centuries of snow elven history are slightly better documented by human scholars, surprisingly enough. In -2250 DR, the Great Glacier began to form north of what are today known as the Cold Lands, eventually swallowing the lands encompassing today's Vaasa and Damara. This meant new opportunities for the weak and scattered tribes of snow elves, and many migrated east. Despite competition with the human Ulutiun people, the snow elves were able to find sustenance and territory aplenty in the new magically-born glacier. This resulted in a population boom, spreading snow elves wider and diversifying their culture more than ever before. As they made contact with the Ulutiun, some turned to the worship of Ulutiu, The Eternal Sleeper. Others were lured by Auril the Icedawn. It is unknown which of the snow elves' gods desired to strengthen their people even further, but from some divine source came a vision to the snow elves living on the unhospitable western shores of the High Ice: they would build a ship and sail west, to an uninhabited paradise island rich in food and shelter. Two tribes did, building ships of poor design but good enough to keep them afloat. As soon as they stepped onboard, a mighty blizzard caught their sails and carried them far beyond the Sea of Moving Ice, to the south and west, until they stranded on the shores of a forest-covered island. They named it Ipiutaq'atui, and prospered (in comparison to the even harder life in the glacier) for centuries. This story, as well, is likely coloured by myth. Eventually, human arrived to settle the island, naming it Forstakkr. They built a town with walls and drove the wandering elven tribes deeper into the woods and up the cold mountainside of Firth. There they have dwelled in relatively small numbers up to this day, keeping to themselves, rarely visible to human eyes. Category:Elves